the humanitarian crisis in Szeged

the humanitarian crisis in Szeged

with all the has been going on in the world (the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage in the US, establishment of an Embassy in Cuba, Greece defaulting on it’s loan payment to the European Central Bank / IMF) not much, if any attention has been given to the growing humanitarian crisis happening here in Szeged.

For weeks now, refugees have been fleeing Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and making their way to Europe. For the first time in the 16 years I’ve lived in Szeged, these refugees have been flooding into Europe through Szeged like never before.  A friend of mine, who is a policeman, told me that 52,000 people entered Hungary illegally last year seeking refugee status. Because of the situation in the Middle East the flood gates have opened and thousands of people everyday are crossing the border from Serbia into Hungary in the hopes of obtaining refugee status in the EU. 

Szeged does not have any refugee camps, so when people get here they find their way to the train station and board trains to the refugee camps in places like Debrecen (where some of refugees are coming to know Jesus). These refugees arrive in Szeged completely exhausted from traveling thousands of miles on foot and squeezed in inhumane conditions in cars & vans. A group of people started to meet these refugees at the train station to offer them help, food, water, hygiene products, etc. This small volunteer movement has caught fire and has been highlighted in the Hungarian news. 

 On the news today, I heard an interview with a sociologist who talked to some of these refugees. One thing they told him was that the way they were treated here in Szeged was the first time in a long time that someone treated them as people, not as cash cows.

As this situation has been unfolding, I’ve felt that it’s our Christian duty to help these people who are the foreigners & outcasts of society. Jesus taught us is Matthew 25, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’  And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’”

Tonight, after church, we took our first carload of humanitarian aid to these refugees. While at the train station, we asked if we could talk with one of the organizers. Fortunately, we were able to talk with a very kind woman. I told her that I’m a pastor of a church and we, and other churches, want to help. She said, that during the night, there has recently been tension among the refugees. And she said it would be great to have a pastor there to help deal with the spiritual issues of the refugees. So in the coming days / weeks, as I can I will be out at the train station ministering to refugees. As a church, we are doing what we can to add supplies to help those in need. A heat wave will hit Hungary this weekend, so we’re going to be buying lots of water to keep people hydrated. 

I know that we might not ever see these people again, but that isn’t the point, the point is we must obey Jesus and care for those who are in need. So, I’m excited about what the Lord is going to do through Golgota Szeged, and though the other churches in Szeged, as we seek to just minister to Jesus as we minister to the refugees.

Please pray for us, for Golgota Szeged & all the churches in Szeged, as we seek to minister the love of Jesus to people who are in such dire need.

thanks!

2015 spring church and family update

Today is Pentecost, which is a holiday here in Hungary, and because that means I have some free time, I’d like to let you know about what’s going on here in Szeged.

Church stuff

the church is doing well. We seem to be in a season of weddings and births.  I’ve already officiated one wedding this month with another this Saturday.  One family welcomed their 3rd child in September and a couple that just got married last August, will welcome their 1st child this September. Things like this bring joy to our hearts and we wanted to share these with you.

Though we have joy in these, it also makes us keenly aware of the singles in our church and those who are struggling with infertility. Please join with us in prayer for them.

Last year the college chaplain of one of the Reformed churches here in Szeged, had the idea to have a Christian festival here in Szeged similar to festivals he and others have taken part of in different parts of Western Europe. Szeged is known for it’s many festivals throughout the year and this year in September will be what is called the “tágás tér festival” (it means “wide open square” festival). This will be an interdenominational Christian festival with concerts, four discussions, workshops, exhibitions, and sporting events. Because the Catholic church still considers us a cult their leadership has insisted we not be named on any promotional materials and really didn’t want Golgota Szeged involved but our friends at the Reformed & Baptist churches have pushed to make sure we're involved cause they believe that Golgota Szeged will be a valuable member in this venture of faith. 

on our part, we’re looking at planning a charity run during this 3 day festival to support the pediatric ICU. The reasoning behind this is that people here in Szeged aren’t really interested in the church & a charity run around the event will draw people that might not come to a Christian festival and if they come hopefully they will stay and see some of the other events / booths. Also the pediatric ICU is always in need of money to care for kids. This will take a lot of planning on our part but we believe it'd be great for us to show our love for Szeged in a tangible way.  Pray for open doors & open hearts as we plan the charity run and that people would come and hear the Gospel during this festival.

Personal stuff

 Life has been extremely busy for us, as both Odi and I are teaching at local schools. Being bi-vocational has been difficult but good. We’re really looking forward to the summer break to catch our breath a little! :-) 

we’re also looking forward to moving into our new house next month. The building process has been very trying and we will be so happy to finally be moved in and enjoy our new house.

 I was hoping to make it to California at the beginning of July for the Calvary Chapel Senior Pastors Conference but it’s just not going to work out this year. the finances just aren’t there for me to make the trip this year. maybe next year we can go as a family to California. 

 the girls are doing well. We continue to take Zara to physical therapy for her back and a couple months ago, Kiera got glasses because one of her eyes is crossed. Life is full of challenges, as you all know. 

prayer points

 - for God’s blessing and provision upon our family

 - for wisdom in dealing with the kids health issues

 - for God’s blessing and anointing as I speak at different churches / events

 - for God’s blessing upon Calvary Szeged and for church growth.

 - for fresh vision for the church.

 - for a fresh outpouring of God's Spirit upon us and the church

 blessings,

kyle, odi, zara, kiera

 here is the info through Calvary Chapel Vista on their website. you can give here (http://www.calvaryvista.com/give-2/) you just need to follow the process and when it asks for the donations put the amount in the "missions" box and in the memo note that it's for "Kyle & Odi Eckhart in Szeged, Hungary". They then will get that to us with our regular monthly support the beginning of each month.

 through Calvary Costa Mesa, you can give here (https://www.easytithe.com/f/?k=6SSHN0DEHB4KG6DH) all you need to do here is go down the scroll down list to my name and the money will be sent to us.

thank you for prayerfully considering this!

winter 2015 family & church update

Church stuff

as I sit down to write this newsletter I realize that it was 20 years ago this week that I was making my final preparations to move to Baja, Hungary for 1 year to help at the church there. by the grace of God, that 1 year has now turned into 20 as February 21st marks 20 years of me living & serving Jesus here in Hungary. I am truly amazed and humbled that God allows me to do what I do. I am truly thankful to God & to all of you who have over the years partnered with me through prayer & financial support so that I can be part of what Jesus is doing here in Hungary.

since it’s been a few months since we’ve written, let us share with you what’s been going on with us & in the life of Calvary Chapel Szeged

Once again the members of our church prepared Christmas packages to take to 2 gypsy villages in Romania. This is something that we've been doing for a few years now & we are blessed that we know where the gifts are going. 

Last September we changed up the format of our mid-week Bible study. It was on Wednesday nights that I taught through the Bible. Now that I've taught through the Bible, we felt the Lord leading us to make some changes. Not to fear, we are still teaching the Bible but we're teaching in a rotation. Right now there are 4 of us in the rotation. This has eased the burden on me, as I'm teaching English at a bilingual high school and it allows me to focus more on our Sunday service. We are currently teaching through the life of David. What we've also done is set apart the 3rd Wednesday night of the month for worship, prayer, and communion. We've seen God bless the changes He has led us in.

 The Lord has given me a lot of opportunities to teach in the past & I have a lot in the future. Since April I've been helping, advising, and teaching on a monthly basis at a new independent church plant in a city called Orosháza, which is about 60km from Szeged. The leader of this church & his wife really love Calvary & have reached out to me being the closest Calvary to them. I blessed to be part of what God is doing in this new church plant. 

teaching at the new church plant in Orosháza

 As I've mentioned in the past, we've got a really good relationship with the Szeged Baptist church. The youth group regularly invites me to teach there, which is always a great joy for me. Once again they've asked me to speak at the national youth conference that they are organizing here in Szeged in March. I'll be speaking about what it means to be a "digitally active" Christian. 

 To my great surprise, I've been invited to speak at the Calvary Chapel Scandinavia conference outside of Stockholm, Sweden at the end of July. I'm humbled by the honor to go & teach and see what God is doing in Scandinavia. Turns out the Finnish wife of the organizer used to be a part of our church about 13-14 years ago. 

 Odi continues to lead worship on Sunday  mornings and meets regularly with our worship teams to practice & learn new songs. 

family stuff

 it’s been a hard couple of months for us as a family. Odi’s grandmother, who many of you knew, passed on to Heaven in December. This marked the 3rd hard Christmas for us. We rejoice knowing that Mami is in the presence of the Lord and with those who have gone on before in faith. 

 Right before Christmas Zara came down with the chicken pox and that began a 6 week period where at least one of us were sick. We’re all better now, but it wasn’t fun being sick for so long.

 As we shared back in October, Zara has a curvature in her spine, like Odi. According to the x-Ray, her curvature is already 20 degrees.  At this point the doctor has recommended swimming & physical therapy. Zara is going swimming twice a week with her kindergarten class & we are taking her to physical therapy twice a week. We are trying to do physical therapy with her at home at least 4-5 times a week but it's hard to motivate Zara to do the exercises. Please pray that she would continue to have a good attitude about doing her daily exercise.

Kiera is starting to show signs of having a curved spine so we are starting to do the physical therapy with her as well. 

Zara & Kiera dressed up for the Farsang (Carnival) event at kindergarten

One thing we both know is that we want to avoid putting our kids through the “traditional” forms of treatment for scoliosis. Odi had a brace growing up and it wasn’t helpful at all. Both the orthopedic doctor & the physical therapist support our decision cause they know that movement is more important that a brace. 

God has given both Odi & I opportunities to teach English to help make up what we are lacking in terms of financial support. Odi is teaching at an elementary school & I'm teaching at a bilingual high school. We're thankful that God is providing for us this way & that we have many opportunities to share with co-workers & students. We know that God has us in these schools for a reason!

a request

 I’d like to share a request with everyone. I’ve been in Hungary for 20 years & the senior pastor of Calvary Szeged for 15. Every year I get the invite to the Calvary Chapel senior pastors conference in California. This year the conference is July 6-9. I’ve never been able to go but I would really, really like to go, be encouraged & connect with many of the pastors in the Calvary movement. A plane ticket for me to go to the conference is $1500. Would you pray about helping make it possible for me to make it out to the conference this year? if you would like to make a financial donation to help make this happen you can follow one of the 2 links below. thank you so much!!

prayer points

 - for God’s blessing & provision upon our family

 - for wisdom in dealing with the kids health issues

 - for God’s blessing & anointing as I speak at different churches / events

 - for God’s blessing upon Calvary Szeged

 - that God would continue to use us & Calvary Szeged as lights in this wonderful city

 - for God’s provision for me to make it to the senior pastors conference in CA this year.

support the work

if you'd like to support the work we're doing here at Calvary Szeged you can do so by sending your tax deductible donates through either Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa or Calvary Chapel Vista

 here is the info through Calvary Chapel Vista on their website. you can give here (http://www.calvaryvista.com/give-2/) you just need to follow the process and when it asks for the donations put the amount in the "missions" box and in the memo note that it's for "Kyle & Odi Eckhart in Szeged, Hungary". They then will get that to us with our regular monthly support the beginning of each month.

 through Calvary Costa Mesa, you can give here (https://www.easytithe.com/f/?k=6SSHN0DEHB4KG6DH) all you need to do here is go down the scroll down list to my name and the money will be sent to us.

thank you for prayerfully considering this!

 blessings,

kyle, odi, zara, kiera

   

a great joy at church today

today was a joyous day at church. Gábor Gulyás taught the our Sunday morning service. Gábor became a Christian at our church about 10 years ago. He came to church through a girl, Anna, who, in 2008, would become his wife. Because of a job opportunity he moved to the north eastern region of Hungary many years ago. At the time we weren't happy to see Gábor leave but little did we know that God had a great plan when Gábor left. Since Gábor left Szeged he has become the pastor of Golgota Nyíregyháza.  

Gábor is just one of the many who have come through Golgota Szeged in the last 14 1/2 years that I've pastored this church. He is the 2nd guy who has gone out from our church to become a pastor of a Golgota church here in Hungary.

 He, along with countless others, who have come & gone at Golgota Szeged, are my crown & joy as Paul talked about in Philippians 4, because I know that so many are serving Jesus all over the world after their time here in Szeged.

 He taught a wonderful message this morning from Mark 5 about the woman who had a flow of blood from 12 years but how Jesus made her whole, please take 45 minutes to listen to this great message.

thrown for a curve

as everyone knows, life doesn't always work out the way we want. In times like this we say that "life has thrown us for a curve". Well, life has thrown our family for a curve. As many of you might know, Odi has scoliosis. It's something that runs in her family. Her father has it, as do her siblings. Though many people say that Zara and Kiera look like me, I'm glad they've inherited their Mom's beauty.
While I'm very happy for that, we've always hoped that this is curvature of the spine is the one gene that our kids wouldn't inherit. 

unfortunately, this is not the case. In late August, Odi showed me a difference in the symmetry of Zara's back. We called our pediatrician and were referred to a specialist. Tonight, I took the girls to see the specialist. He confirmed what we saw, that Zara does have a curvature in her spine. It's similar to the curvature in Odi's (upper spine). Since we were there, I asked the doctor to look at Kiera. He said that she has some curvature in her lower spine. 

even though we were expecting this, it still weighs heavy on our hearts. 

so what now? the doctor wants to do an x-ray on Zara to confirm the degree of the curvature in her spine. After that, he will prescribe physical therapy & swimming therapy for her. With Kiera it's a little more unclear outside of physical therapy. 

we'd like to ask you, if you're reading this, to pray for us, but especially for Zara & Kiera. Please pray that God would give us wisdom moving forward with treatment for our kids and that God would heal them of this, if that is His will. 

thank you for joining with us!

kyle & odi

a word to our sponsors

you've probably heard the phrase "now a word from our sponsors" during a tv event. We have something a little different, we have a word to our sponsors. 

as you know we are a missionary family serving God & His people here in Szeged, Hungary. In large part, we are able to do what we do because of the support of churches in America and individuals. One of the churches that supports us, Calvary Chapel Vista, has recently changed over to a new online giving system. If you received an email from them then you've got nothing to worry about. But, if you haven't received an email form them then please go to this link to make sure everything is set up.

 https://secure-q.net/MyProfile/Add/CCVista

 

 If you didn't get an email, then I'd like to ask you to consider trying this link and supporting us and the work that the Lord is doing here in Szeged. God is doing great things in this part of the world & your support helps!

 love & blessings,

 

 kyle & odi

als ice bucket challenge

this last week I unexpectedly saw my name tagged in a post on Facebook by my long-time friend Jeremy Foster. Turns out he was challenged to take the ALS ice bucket challenge. I had seen this thing go viral but really didn't pay any attention to it until I was called out. After looking into this, I accepted Jeremy's challenge. now, according to the rules of the challenge, I did make a donation. 

since then, I've seen quite a few Christians who've been posting blogs & articles about why they won't participate in this because the ALS Association supports embryonic stem cell research. This has outraged Christians & pro-life groups. After looking into this a little more and reading about how a Catholic diocese discourages participation, a spokesperson for the ALS confirmed that the ALS does fund one study involving embryonic stem cells using money from one specific donor.

Read more: http://www.wjla.com/articles/2014/08/roman-catholic-diocese-in-ohio-discourages-als-ice-bucket-challenge-106325.html#ixzz3B9DZBzOE

what I read from this is that money raise from the "ALS Ice Bucket Challenge" doesn't go to support research involving embryonic stem cells. 

so my question is, "why are Christians making such a big issue out of this?" Really, I don't understand. I think this is drawing attention to a cause that affects many people. 

this leads me to my next question. If Christians are so enraged at this, then shouldn't people be giving back their iPhones, iPads, MacBooks and stop watching Disney movies & visiting Disney parks because of their support of the homosexual community? Shouldn't people stop buying things that are produced in parts of the world where child labor is used & the Communist party rules? Or are well all content to over look these things cause they're far from home?

so my conclusion is this, I can't change the research that companies do that I don't agree with, but I can stand by those who are suffering. I can't change the policies of those companies or governments that I don't agree with, but I'm willing to use these products if they enable me & my family to live a better life and help us spread the Gospel. I'm going to continue to visit Disneyland as long as I live cause I think it's simply awesome & one of the highlights of my life was taking my kids there earlier this year. 

these are my thoughts. Feel free to disagree & share with me why!